


Sometime Around Midnight

by Ninkasa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-14
Updated: 2012-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:37:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninkasa/pseuds/Ninkasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after returning to Heaven after averting the Apocalypse, Castiel accidentally meets up with a former ally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometime Around Midnight

He wasn’t expecting to see her just then.

Because if he had been expecting it, then he would have come up with a way to avoid it at all costs.

Castiel paused midway between stepping out after her and slinking back into the shadows.

His brothers thought him odd for many reasons -- going around in Heaven in his human form was one -- but they seemed to take particular offense that he found enjoyment in walking the streets of the Earth in said human form. 

They also found offense in his continued attachment to the “family” he’d been brought into during the attempt to avert the Apocalypse.

It took all his control not to seek out where Sam and Dean were hunting the latest ghoul, werewolf or vampire. Difficult not to use his powers to make sure Jo and Ellen were still okay.

Anna, at least, was understanding. She’d smiled slightly and said, “It’s okay. I keep hitting Sam’s number on the cell phone and then hanging up.”

Castiel had the awful suspicion that she wouldn’t have gone back to Heaven if he had chosen to stay on Earth. Crowley had made such a comment, but as it had been Crowley who’d said it, Castiel had outright ignored it.

“You still love Dean and you still want Meg and that’s not going over so well with certain members of our family,” Anna had said, sounding sad and amused in the same breath. She’d paused then. “I just thought you should know. They don’t really want to listen to you.”

Then she’d left him alone to dwell on that because while she was still fiercely loyal, she had started giving him more space since they’d returned to Heaven. She said that after a year being almost constantly in his pocket some alone time was amazing. But she did on occasion come to tell him things she’d heard and that one had been enough to send her directly to him in the middle of his arguing with Balthazar about something inane.

So, he tried -- really tried -- to keep away from Dean and Sam. And particularly away from Meg because he knew his -- “relationship” with her had really upset his brothers.

As had the fact that they weren’t allowed to kill her and Crowley when all was said and done. 

They weren’t terribly concerned with the fact that in the end both demons had done what it was God had really wanted. They shouldn’t have had to suffer the demons’ continued existence.

Something that had amused Meg to no end and Castiel found the worry that she would mouth off to the wrong angel and get herself killed was still as present as it had been during the war.

Gabriel had found it amusing that they all suspected it was Meg’s mouth that was going to get her into trouble and not the fact that she tended to walk into dangerous situations without a thought.

For that matter, Castiel frequently worried Dean was going to come to the same end.

Neither would appreciate the comparison.

Nor would they appreciate the fact that it was taking the same amount of willpower for him to stay away from both of them.

So, it had come as a shock to turn the corner and find her slowing down as she came down the street in the opposite direction.

Same tiny little brunette she’d been possessing for the last three years. He suspected the girl’s body didn’t deteriorate simply because the original owner was no longer there.

And the worst thing was, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t seen her.

And he couldn’t ignore the fact that the world was suddenly spinning or the way her facial expression went from surprised to delighted to angry in about three seconds flat.

She was never as inscrutable as she’d liked to believe.

He blinked and her facial expression had gone blank and she was headed towards him in a manner that he could only describe as purposeful.

“You could have called, you know,” was all she said when she was close enough to him to be heard but still out of arm’s reach.

“You wouldn’t have picked up, anyway,” he responded, stepping forward and noting that she didn’t move backwards.

Meg frowned at him then. “You don’t know that,” she said. 

This was true, she’d always answered on the first ring whenever he’d called her last year.

But he didn’t know how else to respond to her. He suspected any answer that was true would be met with sarcasm and an accusation with regards to his gender.

She stared at him for a moment and then spread her arms. “Was there something you wanted?”

Oh.

Oh. She thought he’d purposely sought her out.

And he didn’t have any explanation that wouldn’t get an adverse reaction.

The fact that she wasn’t trying to hit him or swearing at him meant that he’d caught her off-guard.

Which made him feel a bit better. At least they were on equal footing on that scale.

Meg tipped her head to the side and came forward now to where she was in his “personal space” -- as Dean would call it -- and he had to fight the urge to step back.

He also had to fight the sensory memories that were coming back to him. Flash of skin or the hint of that Patchouli-scented soap she liked so much (Dean called it “hippie soap”). 

Meg grinned and her teeth were really ridiculously white in the lights of the shops surrounding them.

And another flash from another town in a bedroom or maybe a backseat somewhere and he was dizzy and disoriented and damn it, he wasn’t supposed to have these sorts of thoughts or emotions anymore.

She was also ridiculously warm when she leaned in towards him, placing her mouth inches from his ear.

“Is it a secret? What you’re doing here?”

She pulled back now, standing just where she could see him but close enough that he could touch her if he wanted to.

She reached out and flicked a hand against his trench coat. “I thought we decided you were going to vary your wardrobe.” Meg paused. “or is that just the traditional angel-garb? Where’re your white robes and halo?”

Two years ago, he would have treated her to his typical diatribe about not getting confused with what pop-culture gave as the normal images for angels.

But he was rather well-versed in sarcasm these days, so he just shrugged. “These clothes. . .fit this body.”

And it wasn’t as if he could take the wardrobe he’d acquired on Earth with him to Heaven.

A corner of her mouth quirked up and she nodded before starting to walk away and after a moment, he fell into step beside her, slowing his normal gait to match her shorter legs without thought.

“You didn’t tell me what you wanted,” she said after a moment of walking in silence.

He didn’t think telling her it was an accident was the best course of action, so Castiel didn’t say anything for a long moment and then he said, “I needed to see you.”

Meg eyed him sidelong, sizing him up in that manner that meant she was either going to kiss him or kill him. “And why now? It’s been a year, Cl-- Castiel.”

The name sounded odd coming from her and she stumbled over it in such a manner that he couldn’t recall ever having heard her use it before.

For that matter, prior to returning to Heaven he hadn’t heard his full name spoken in over two years. It was always “Cas” -- or “Clarence” once she arrived. He’d at first not even responded when someone used his full name in Heaven. He was just so used to not hearing it.

“Not Clarence,” he said and he wondered at the sound of disappointment that came into his voice when he did.

Meg frowned at him and stopped beneath the streetlight they were passing under.

“It doesn’t really fit anymore, does it?”

He’d take her word for it. Castiel had never really understood the point of the nickname. Or rather he’d never bothered to ask what it was referring to.

Jo had once laughed and said that it was “appropriate” and that it was witty. Actually, she’d said “smart-assed”, but he’d suspected she’d only used that term because she was referencing Meg.

“I suppose not,” he said after a moment when he realized she was really expecting a response.

She smiled in a manner that he thought looked vaguely sad for a moment and then the look was gone and she shrugged and continued walking.

“You didn’t tell me why you waited so long,” she said, frowning at him slightly.

“I wasn’t certain you’d want to see me,” he said after a moment.

It was true. She’d railed at him and actually tried to hit him when he’d said he was returning to the Host. He didn’t understand why she’d been so angry at the time.

He’d thought she’d be glad to be rid of him.

They’d spent so much time in each other’s company that he’d expected her to be relieved.

Instead she’d been angry. Angrier than he’d seen her since -- well, since the debacle with Medea and Dean in Nevada.

She frowned at him again and then shook her shoulders as if she were shrugging a weight off of them. “I wouldn’t have minded knowing you were still around,” she said after a moment. Then she seemed to re-think it, probably believing it made her sound like a girl. “You know, so I’d know who to curse at when things go wrong.”

She clicked her tongue and made a face and then shoved her hands down into the pockets of the jeans she was wearing. 

He had absolutely no idea what to say to that. 

He didn’t think “I wanted to tell you” would be the best thing to say.

“I apologize.”

Meg snorted and removed her hands from her pockets. “Don’t say things you don’t mean, Clarence,” she said after a moment. “Lying is a sin.”

He opened his mouth and closed it again.

“What is it that you want?” she repeated.

“Nothing in particular,” he answered after a moment’s thought. 

She made a face at this that he couldn’t read at all. And he had the thought that he should leave her be. 

She didn’t seem so much annoyed as -- touchy. 

“You’re not being fair,” she said after another moment of silence and he had a feeling she’d not meant to say that aloud.

He started to say “I don’t understand--” when she moved forward suddenly and caught onto the front of his coat with one hand and the back of his head with the other, pulling him down into a kiss that he found it far to easy to sink into.

Castiel found his hands moved to her waist to pull her closer of their own accord as if simply by instinct alone.

He let his mouth open when her tongue toyed with his bottom lip and she whimpered slightly when he slid his hands up to rest on the small of her back beneath her t-shirt.

He wasn’t supposed to be able to have these sorts of responses anymore either.

She pulled back from him suddenly, leaving him disoriented and slightly off-kilter.

Meg grinned at him. “I just wanted to make sure I could still do that.”

Castiel licked his lips once before responding.

“We shouldn’t,” he said, thinking suddenly of the fact that any one of his brothers could be watching what he was doing at this exact moment.

“No,” she said, already tugging on his hands towards a nearby car that he suspected she meant to steal.

She grinned again. “But you will.”

He frowned at her and then felt some part of that willpower he’d been clinging to for the last year die when she stood on tiptoes to kiss his throat once.

He sighed in what was supposed to be defeat but it felt more like relief.

“Yes.”


End file.
